The People and Books program at the Adult Learning Institute at Columbia-Greene Community College in Hudson, New York recently read The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve. The group all agreed that the author is among the best of the novelists writing today.

This fall, members of the Center for Learning in Retirement at Rock Valley College in Illinois will be studying the Rise and Fall of the British Raj. They will explore the factors, events and people who shaped both the rise and fall of the British Empire in India.

Members of the Explorers Lifelong Learning Institute at Salem State College in Massachusetts recently studied The General and the Rise of the Common Man: The Presidency of Andrew Jackson, 1824-1836. This course provided a critical evaluation of Jackson by focusing on how his actions and politics affected the life of the ordinary person during his eight years in the president’s office. The course began with the contested election of 1824.

Members of the Institute for Continuing Learning at Young Harris College in Georgia recently studied A Survey of Medieval Europe. The course included the fall of Rome in 476 in the West, the Byzantine Empire’s continuation of the classical tradition, the early Germans concentrating upon the Carolingians, the Viking threat, feudalism and manorialism, the Crusades, the commercial revival, and intellectual developments making way for the Renaissance.

This fall, the Learning in Retirement program at Waukesha County Technical College in Wisconsin is offering members a chance to study Musical Memories: 100 Years of Popular Songs. Guided by a husband and wife team of leaders, participants will study a century of fabulous American music – outstanding composers, vocalists, hoofers, Hollywood and Broadway musicals, radio shows and the big bands.

Members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason University in Virginia recently studies Moliere’s Elegant Ridicule. In five sessions they explored Moliere’s comic genius, his life and his times. They also read in detail four of his plays in English translations by poet Richard Wilbur.

Members of the Rose Institute for Life Long Learning at the Menorah Park Center in Beachwood, Ohio recently studied Shakespeare on the Operatic Stage. The course reviewed a number of operas that are based on plays by Shakespeare including “Othello,” “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” “Falstaff,” Romeo and Juliet,” and “Beatrice and Benedict.”

Members of the Senior Academy at the University of South Florida, Sarasota took a course this past winter entitled Joy of Science. The world of science was explored in this course covering the basic ideas of physical, biological, earth and space sciences and technology.